


Girls' Day Out

by PoH



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Anxiety, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Healing, Self-Esteem Issues, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:48:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28533162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoH/pseuds/PoH
Summary: Olette invites Xion to go shopping, just the two of them.  But Xion has never hung out with friends before without Lea or Roxas around and isn't sure this is a good idea.  Written for the Kingdom Heals Zine
Relationships: Axel & Roxas & Xion (Kingdom Hearts), Olette & Xion (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19
Collections: Kingdom Heals





	Girls' Day Out

**Author's Note:**

> This is my piece for Kingdom Heals, a hurt/comfort zine with a focus on healing. Just as a heads-up, this story does begin with Xion throwing up, in case anyone is sensitive to reading about that. I included it in the tags, but sometimes these things sneak under the radar.

Lea woke up to a sound that he hadn’t heard in years, but one that he recognized as soon as he heard it.

The sound of somebody throwing up.

He rolled out of bed and stumbled into the hallway, using a fire spell for guidance. There was a light switch somewhere, but Lea had only been living in the old mansion with Roxas and Xion for about a month, so he couldn’t remember where it was at the moment. He tracked the noises over to Xion’s bedroom. “Xion? You okay in there?”

“Axel? Axel, help me!” she sobbed, “Something’s wrong with me!”

Lea opened the door, but immediately jumped back. Xion knelt on the floor next to her bed, surrounded by vomit, with stains covering her pajamas. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. “My stomach hurts and this stuff just keeps coming out of my mouth! I don’t know what it is! Am I dying, Axel?”

He closed his eyes in order to give himself a moment to process what was happening. “No, Xion. You’re not dying. You must’ve caught some kind of stomach bug. It happens to lots of people, including me.”

“A bug crawled into my stomach? When? How?” she whimpered.

“No, not that kind of bug. It’s just another word that people use for when they’re sick. You’re going to be fine. Just…why didn’t you get a trash can or something?”

“I didn’t know what was happening!” she cried.

“Okay, okay. Wait right there.” Lea dashed over to the nearest bathroom. Once he’d gotten the trash can, he passed it over to Xion and guided her out into the hallway. “Next time you feel sick like this, you want to get to the bathroom and aim for the toilet. That’s the best place to let it all out.”

Xion nodded. “Thank you, Axel,” she mumbled.

A door opened and Roxas stuck his head out. “Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, we’re fine. Xion just got sick,” Lea explained. Right after he spoke, Xion ducked her head into the trash can.

“Xion, what happened?” cried Roxas, “Was it something you ate?”

“We don’t know. Look, since you’re up, could you stay with her in the bathroom for a little while?” Lea glanced back at Xion’s bedroom and shuddered. This was _not_ what he’d signed up for when he agreed to move in with them. “I gotta clean all of that up.”

“Yeah, sure. C’mon, Xion.” Roxas helped her into the bathroom and knelt down next to her. She sniffled and sobbed over the rim of the toilet while he rubbed her back. “It’s okay. You’ll feel better soon.”

“When? This feels so weird. I hate it. I just want it to stop.”

“It’ll stop soon, I promise,” said Roxas gently, keeping his hand on her back. “I don’t remember it too well, but I think this has happened to Sora sometimes. It feels familiar. And I have this memory of Hayner getting sick after he bet Seifer that he could eat a dozen ice cream bars at once. But that was from the fake Twilight Town, so I don’t know if it actually happened or not.”

By the time Lea came back into the bathroom, Xion’s stomach had calmed down somewhat. “If we give you a bucket, do you want to lie down on your bed, or do you think you’re better off staying in here?”

Xion rubbed her aching stomach. Her hands trembled and she still felt something stirring around her throat. “I think I’d better stay here.”

“So I guess you’re not going to be able to go shopping with Olette tomorrow, huh?” said Roxas.

Xion lifted her head. “Oh? I don’t have to?”

Lea had stepped outside of the bathroom to get Xion a clean pair of pajamas, but stopped with one hand still on the door frame.

“No, of course you don’t have to go. You’re sick. You need to stay in bed and rest,” said Roxas, “That’s what people do when they get sick.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Hey, Roxas? Why don’t you get to bed?” suggested Lea, “You’ve got that early morning shift at Le Grand Bistro tomorrow. I’ll stay up with Xion.”

“No way. I won’t be able to sleep now. Let me help.”

“All right, fine.” Lea didn’t have the energy to argue with him. He sat down on Xion’s other side and leaned against the bathtub. Roxas returned to rubbing her back and she closed her eyes. “You know, Xion,” said Lea, “There’s lots of different reasons for why somebody might feel sick to their stomach. Usually it’s because they ate something weird or they caught some germ. But sometimes it happens when you’re really anxious about something.” Xion opened her eyes to indicate that she was listening, but chose not to comment. “All right, spill it. Why don’t you want to hang out with Olette tomorrow?”

Xion shuddered. “What? I do want to hang out with Olette tomorrow! We’ve been talking about it all week!”

“No, _she_ has. _You_ haven’t. And just now, when Roxas said you wouldn’t be able to meet her tomorrow, you said, ‘I don’t have to?’ That’s not what I used to say when my parents told me I couldn’t hang out with my friends, no matter how sick I felt. I was still disappointed.”

Roxas frowned. “Xion? You don’t like Olette?”

“I do like Olette!” Xion insisted. She wrapped her arms around her stomach. It felt queasy again, but fortunately, nothing came out. After a minute went by and her friends still waited for more of an explanation, she admitted, “I’m worried that she’s not going to like me.”

“What are you talking about? We hang out with her all the time. If she didn’t like you, you’d know by now,” said Roxas.

“Yeah. _We_ hang out with her. You and me. And that’s because of the connection that you guys have.” Xion rubbed her stomach. “Whenever I’m with Hayner, Pence, and Olette, you guys are always with me. So I just follow your lead and watch how you guys talk and act. I’ve never hung out with a normal person by myself before. I don’t know what she expects me to do, and when I mess it up, she’s going to realize that being my friend was a mistake that she never should have made.”

Lea and Roxas exchanged looks behind Xion’s back. “Xion. You’re not a mistake,” said Roxas.

“And you never have been,” Lea added. He tapped her shoulder to get her to look at him. “Hey. C’mon. I decided that I wanted to be friends with you and I don’t make mistakes. Are you suggesting that _I_ made a mistake?” He put his hand against his heart. “Ouch. That _hurts_ , Xion.” Xion let out a small giggle.

Roxas smirked. “He makes mistakes every single day, but that wasn’t one of them.”

“You too? Man, I am getting attacked from all sides here tonight!” Lea pretended to cringe as if he were actually being attacked. “So much for trying to be a good friend!” Xion’s quiet giggles turned into real laughter. Some color came back to her cheeks, though she kept her hands on her stomach. “Trust me,” Lea continued, “You’re thinking about this way too much. First of all, there’s no such thing as a ‘normal’ person. Everyone’s got something about them that makes them seem a little ‘weird’ to someone else.”

“Yeah, but not many people can say that they were created in a lab and that they were forced to join an evil organization twice, like me. Or that they died and got brought back to life.”

Lea nodded. “True. But Olette already knows about some of that. Second of all, she’s asking you to hang out and go shopping with her. There’s really not a whole lot to that, Xion. You pick a store, you look at what they’ve got on sale, convince your friends to buy stuff that they definitely can’t afford, and just talk. It’s really that simple.”

“But that’s just it,” said Xion, “I didn’t know any of that. I don’t know what it’s really like to be a teenager because I don’t have any memories of growing up the way other people do. All I have is eating ice cream with you guys and following the orders of Organization XIII.” Her throat felt funny again, so she turned away from her friends, just in case. “And the thing is, when Olette asked me to go shopping with her, and I said I would, Hayner and Pence got so excited. They’ve been coming up to me all week and thanking me for ‘saving’ them. ‘Oh, Xion, thank goodness you’re our friend now! Now Olette has someone to do ‘girl’ stuff with! We never have to go shopping again! You’re our hero, Xion!’ But I don’t even know…”

Roxas interrupted, “Xion, they were joking. It’s not that big of a deal to them. I’m sorry; I thought you knew that.”

“No, they sounded really serious.”

“No, really, they were joking. They just don’t like shopping much, that’s all.”

Xion closed her eyes. “I don’t know. Olette’s been really excited about it too. All this talk about doing ‘girl stuff’ together. I don’t know what that means! I’m not a normal girl. What if I don’t like doing the stuff that Olette likes to do? I’m just so scared that I’m going to let everyone down and ruin the only friendships that I have.”

“Xion, I’m trying to tell you, there’s no such thing as ‘normal,’ and there’s definitely no such thing as a ‘normal girl.’ Look at Kairi and Naminé. Aerith and Yuffie. Aqua. Larxene. Are they all the same?” asked Lea.

“No,” Xion admitted, “But…”

“Exactly. You be whoever you want to be. That’s your ‘normal.’ And Olette likes your normal or else she wouldn’t have asked you to hang out with her. She’s probably just hoping to get to know you better; see what kind of things you have in common. That’s all. Nobody’s expecting anything huge from you.”

Xion thought over his words. “I guess so. Maybe we can find another day to hang out, instead of tomorrow.”

“No,” said Lea, “I think you do need to hang out with her tomorrow. If you try to ignore this and keep putting off the moment when you hang out with someone who isn’t me or Roxas, this is just going to get worse. Just give it a try?”

Xion felt a sharp pain in her stomach. Her heart started racing. “Please, do I really have to? I don’t think I can do it!”

“You’ll be fine,” Roxas reassured her, “And I’ll be working at Le Grand Bistro tomorrow. So if things aren’t turning out so well, just ask her if she wants to stop by and get a dessert, and I’ll come out and talk with you guys?”

“You will?” Xion felt her stomach muscles relaxing. “Thank you, Roxas.”

“But don’t go over there right away,” Lea warned her. “Just give it a shot with you and Olette by yourselves first, okay?”

“…okay.”

Lea frowned. That did not sound very convincing. But he let it go. At this point, he felt that she didn’t really need him to push her any further, in the middle of the night with an upset stomach. If she decided to take his advice, then she would. And if she didn’t, they’d just have to try something else to help her make friends.

* * *

_This was a mistake._

Xion waited for Olette next to one of the shops that sold parts for Gummi ships. Her eyes kept flickering over to Le Grand Bistro. Maybe they should have agreed to meet there. They could’ve just stayed there the whole afternoon, eating Little Chef’s delicious food and chatting with Roxas.

Except now that she thought about it, Roxas wouldn’t be able to help her as much as he’d promised. Scrooge McDuck did not like his employees messing around on company time instead of working. Roxas even joked that Scrooge could smell it whenever his paychecks were being wasted. He’d never allow Roxas to come out and chat with her. 

_This was such a big mistake_ , she thought, _I need to go home. I don’t know what I’m doing._

“Hey! Xion!”

Olette ran up to her with a big smile. Her handbag smacked against her side. Xion tried to smile back. It must’ve worked, because Olette didn’t look any less cheerful. “I am _so_ excited about this; you have no idea! Where do you want to go?”

“Huh?”

“Well, you guys have said that you’ve never gone shopping with a friend before. So: you pick! Want to try looking for some new clothes? Need gifts for people? Any places in town that you’ve always wanted to check out, but never have before?”

Xion blinked. Her stomach still hurt, which didn’t help her thinking process. There were plenty of places that she’d always wanted to check out. But now that Olette was asking her, they all went right out of her head. She racked her brains to try and remember something. There was that cute little bookshop near the outdoor movie theater, ‘A Cozy Place to Read.’ But at the moment, she couldn’t remember if Olette liked to read or what kind of books she liked. What if Olette thought that was a boring choice for shopping?

She liked looking through the window of the pet store to watch the puppies rolling around with their toys. But what if Olette didn’t like dogs? (Roxas always hated it when someone’s dog jumped on him.) Or what if she was allergic to them and Xion accidentally got her sick?

They could go shopping for clothes. Xion started getting excited just thinking about it. After spending almost all of her life wearing the Organization coat, trying on new outfits that she’d picked out for herself had been one of the most fun things about her new life. But she’d only spent a month in Twilight Town so far and had no idea what other teenagers thought looked cool.

“Sorry, did I put you on the spot?” asked Olette.

Xion blushed. “No! I know what I’m doing. I…” She groaned. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she admitted.

“It’s okay! Here, how ‘bout we get some ice cream first? We can walk around while we’re eating it and do some window-shopping. And if anything catches your eye, tell me, and we’ll check it out.”

“Um…okay.” Xion swallowed. “It’s just that I don’t know what window-shopping is,” she blurted out.

“Oh, it’s where you walk around and look at the stuff on display in the windows, but you don’t actually go inside unless you really want to,” explained Olette. She giggled. Xion winced. She shouldn’t have admitted that she didn’t know what that meant. But Olette continued, “It’s a lot cheaper than actually buying something.” It took another minute for Xion to realize that Olette was just laughing at herself.

She felt a little more relaxed once they’d each bought a sea-salt ice cream bar. At least that felt familiar. And if there was one thing Xion knew about Hayner, Pence, and Olette, it was that they liked sea-salt ice cream as much as she did. “Did you guys really used to eat this stuff every single day?” asked Olette, as they walked up the hill that would eventually take them to the clock tower.

Xion nodded as she bit into her ice cream and savored the cold, creamy treat with its salty aftertaste. Her throat and stomach didn’t feel so unsettled now. “Axel- I mean, Lea- used to take us to watch the sunset after our missions. It was the one part of the day that I always knew would be fun.”

“The clock tower has such a great view, doesn’t it?” said Olette. “We should go there after we’re done shopping.” She stopped in front of a store with a display of various sewing machines and fabric patterns. “Hey, mind if we stop in here? This is where I get all my fabric and floss for embroidery.”

“Sure!” Xion followed her inside. _That’s how I’ll do it,_ she decided, _I’ll just let Olette pick out the stores and follow her lead_. Once inside, however, she was not sure where to go or what to look at. She had heard Olette talk about her embroidery before, so at least she knew what it was. But she’d never tried it herself. So she followed a few paces behind Olette around the store.

Olette stopped in front of a rack with embroidery hoops. “Hey, if you ever want to try embroidery yourself, I can help you get started?” she offered. She hoisted up her handbag so that Xion could see it better. “See the butterflies? I just finished stitching them last night.”

“Wow, they’re really pretty!”

“Thanks!” Olette grinned. “It’s so much fun and it’s really relaxing once you get into it. I find that it helps me when I’m freaking out about something. Because it’s not super hard, but it does require focusing on what you’re doing, so you’re distracted from other stuff.”

 _I wish I’d had some embroidery last night_ , Xion thought. “How do I do it?”

“Well, you’re going to need your own hoop, and the right needles, and some fabric and floss…”

Xion nodded. This must be the part of “shopping” that Axel described where you convinced your friends to buy things that they couldn’t afford. Fortunately, she did have some pocket money from the few dog-sitting jobs that she’d done since she settled into Twilight Town. Olette helped her pick out some red, orange, yellow, and pink threads that reminded them both of the sunset.

After they left the store, Olette turned to Xion and said, “Okay, that was my pick. Now it’s your turn. Where do you want to go?”

Xion froze. This again, just when she was starting to relax? Her mind went completely blank, even as she tried desperately to remember what places her friends liked to visit and which places they avoided. _I can’t make a mistake, I can’t make a mistake, c’mon, Xion, THINK, don’t make a mistake…_

“Xion, are you okay?” Olette looked worried. “Are you not having a good time? Do you want to go home?”

“No!” replied Xion quickly. “I am having a good time with you! I just…” She twisted the plastic shopping bag from the fabric store around and around, let it unfurl, and twisted it again. Olette waited for her to say something. Before the silence could get too awkward, Xion opened her mouth and blurted out, “Could we go to that bookstore that’s over by Scrooge’s theater?”

“A Cozy Place to Read? Yeah! That place is so cute! There’s a bakery in there too, if you want dessert or some coffee. And they have a craft section where I’ve gotten some great books on embroidery. C’mon, I’ll show you!”

Xion let out the breath that she’d been holding. The girls chatted about Olette’s past embroidery projects while they walked down the street to the bookstore. They could hear carnival-esque music coming from one of Scrooge’s movies in the outdoor theater. As Olette opened the door to the shop, Xion stopped to listen. Based on the reactions of the audience, it sounded like they might be watching “The Mad Doctor.” But as soon as she stepped inside and Olette shut the door, the noise level dropped. Instead of music and cheers, she heard hushed conversations from the people browsing the shelves and the crackling of a fire.

A Cozy Place to Read had been structured to look like a little house. Each room had a fireplace with armchairs and a coffee table arranged around it. The mantelpiece displayed books specially picked out by the staff, while the rest of the books stayed on the shelves against the walls. Xion meandered around the shop, followed by Olette. Once they’d picked out a few books about embroidery, the girls went over to the counter selling baked goods and drinks. They sat at one of the little tables, each holding a warm chocolate chip muffin. Olette sipped her coffee while Xion drank a cup of hot chocolate. “How does it taste?” asked Olette.

“The muffin or the hot chocolate?”

“Both?”

“Amazing,” replied Xion. She leaned in closer and added, “Don’t tell Roxas and Lea, but I think I’m starting to like chocolate better than sea-salt.”

Olette giggled along with her. “I promise. I’m just so glad that you’re having a good time.”

“Me too.” Xion squeezed her cup before asking the follow-up question: “Are _you_ having a good time?”

“Are you kidding? This has been a blast!”

“So, I’m not messing this up?”

Olette wrinkled her nose. “Messing up what? Hanging out with me?”

“Yes. And shopping too. I know how much you’ve been looking forward to this, and Hayner and Pence were so happy that I was going with you, and I don’t want to let you guys down.”

“Oh, those two.” Olette rolled her eyes. “They’re just being stupid. You’re not letting me down, Xion. I know you’ve never been shopping before. That’s why I asked you to come, so you could try it and see if you liked it. And by the way, you’re already better at this than Hayner and Pence because all _they_ do is complain when I ask them to come with me. Which is stupid because I go to all of Hayner’s Struggle tournaments and check out every urban legend that Pence wants to investigate, but they never hear me complain about _that_.”

“Really? You’re having fun with me?” Xion asked tentatively.

“Of course! I am really having fun with you.”

Xion sighed. “Now I feel stupid for getting so worked up over this.”

“You’re not stupid. Lots of people get anxious over stuff that turns out to be no big deal. It’s not like you can see what’s going to happen,” Olette pointed out. “Hayner makes fun of me because of how much I freak out over school. Sometimes I have nightmares or get sick before a test because I am so sure that I’m going to fail it.”

Xion laughed. “You get scared about school?”

Olette flicked her napkin at Xion. “Hey, don’t make fun of me too. It’s my old math teacher’s fault. I mean, I’ve always been nervous about school. But last year, on the very first day of school, our math teacher gave us this lecture. He basically said that if we failed his class, we’d probably fail out of school too, and then we’d fail at life.” She rolled her eyes. “It turns out, all he meant was that the class was going to be super easy. We could look at our notes during the tests and everything. So it was impossible to fail his class. But I didn’t know that on the first day. I went home early with a stomach ache and cried for hours.”

“Oh no! You got a stomach ache too?” asked Xion.

“Yeah, why? When did you get a stomach ache over school?”

“I didn’t, but I did get sick last night because I was so scared that I’d make a mistake and you wouldn’t want to be friends with me anymore!”

“Oh no, Xion!” cried Olette. She reached out to squeeze Xion’s hand. “C’mon, I wouldn’t have asked you to come shopping with me if I didn’t like hanging out with you!”

Xion blushed. The whole situation reminded her of the first day that she ate ice cream with Axel and Roxas on the clock tower, and they insisted that she should trust them to help her more. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“No, it makes sense. This is all so new to you. Me, Hayner, and Pence don’t expect you to know everything about normal stuff in Twilight Town or like everything we show you. We’re not going to make fun of you if you do something that doesn’t make sense. Okay, Hayner might, but he’s just teasing. Never take him too seriously.”

Xion nodded. “So, if I suddenly decided that I didn’t like shopping anymore, Hayner and Pence wouldn’t hate me? I thought they meant it when they said they were happy that I was going with you.”

“No way. They’d probably say you have great taste.”

Both girls laughed and went back to chatting about the patterns in the books that Xion had bought. As she took one out of her bag, someone came to stand in line for the bakery right next to their table. Xion looked up. The woman had something shiny sticking out of her ear lobe. It looked similar to something that she’d seen Luxord wearing during her days in the Organization. “Hey, Olette? What’s that?” she whispered.

“That? She’s wearing an earring,” Olette explained, once she understood what Xion pointed towards. “I guess they look pretty weird if you’ve never seen one before, huh?”

“I used to know a guy who had one. Are you born with them, or can other people get them too?”

Olette snorted into her coffee. “No, nobody’s born with pierced ears. There’s a jewelry place, back up by the hill, where you can get them done if you want. Do you want to check it out when we’re done eating?”

“Yeah!” Xion hurried to finish her muffin. “I want to see as many stores as we can in one day!”

* * *

Roxas blinked a couple of times to keep himself awake. Saturdays meant crowds at Le Grand Bistro and he needed to focus on who needed seating. All he wanted to do was go home and take a long nap. He knew that he should have gone back to bed instead of staying up with Lea and Xion, but he would rather go through the Keyblade War all over again than tell Lea that he’d been right about something. Despite his exhaustion, he looked around every so often to see if any of the guests happened to be Xion or Olette. His shift was almost over and they still hadn’t come. He wasn’t sure if that meant anything good or bad.

“Hi, Roxas!”

Roxas flinched at the loud noise. He looked up and saw the girls coming down the steps that led to Le Grand Bistro’s outdoor dining area. They carried shopping bags in each hand; Xion struggled to hold hers up. Something sparkled around her ears. When she got closer, he realized that she wore earrings. More importantly, she was smiling. “Hey, guys!” He looked closely at Xion. “Everything okay?”

Xion nodded. “Everything’s fine. My stomach feels a lot better.” They both understood what the other one really meant.

“We’re going to drop our stuff off at my house and then we wanted to see if you guys wanted to meet us up at the clock tower later?” asked Olette.

“Yeah, sounds great!”

“Okay! See you later!” Xion waved to him and skipped off with Olette.


End file.
